Footage of Abdi Mohamed Shooting Finally Released

SALT LAKE CITY, UT — The Salt Lake District Attorney’s Office today released police bodycamera footage of the February 2016 shooting of Abdi Mohammed, who was 17 at the time. Therelease of the footage, for which the ACLU of Utah has been fighting since May 2016, comes lessthan two weeks after the District Attorney’s Office vowed to appeal a unanimous ruling from theState Records Committee that the body camera footage, as well as other media related to theshooting, be released to the public.

“While we are pleased that this footage is finally available for the public to review, it must benoted that the ACLU fought this fight for transparency across the board, not just in this case,”commented ACLU of Utah cooperating attorney David Reymann of Parr Brown Gee & Loveless.“We sincerely hope that the next time a high-profile incident like this occurs, and communitymembers demand accountability and transparency, Salt Lake County will not force people tohire lawyers to access records that should be immediately presumed and made public.”

Abdi Mohamed, who relocated to Utah from Somalia with his family, was shot multiple times bySalt Lake City police officers on February 27, 2016, in the downtown Rio Grande neighborhood.He was in a coma for several weeks and, nearly a year later, is still confined to a wheelchair dueto his injuries.

“We consider this a victory for open government and transparency. The public can finally viewfor themselves controversial footage that has been repeatedly described to them by governmentofficials, and was recorded by body cameras paid for by their tax dollars,” said BrittneyNystrom, Executive Director of the ACLU of Utah. “We maintain that the footage should havebeen released many months ago, because these are clearly public records; however, we areglad that transparency ultimately triumphed in this case.”